Like a clean cow chewing cud...so Bede describes the poet Caedmon. This blog is a place to report news, calls for papers, news items, and other things of interest to the Late Antique, Patristic, Early Medieval, and Book Arts folk and to just chat about things medieval.
Also see other blogs at The Heroic Age and Modern Medieval.

Recent scholarship has suggested that the political landscape of early medieval northwestern Europe owed a greater debt to the Huns, as opposed to the Romans or Germanic peoples. This session invites paper proposals that examine the Merovingian Kingdoms within the context of their relationships with their neighbors. We are particularly interested in papers that examine traditionally studied relationships from new perspectives and papers that examine little-studied interactions.

Echoes of Columbanus

Sponsors: The Heroic Age, ASIMS

Session Organizers: Deanna Forsman and James Lyttleton

The Irish ascetic Columbanus is the most famous example of the classic peregrinus: an individual who chooses a life of exile among foreigners as a form of religious devotion. Columbanus is also famous for his monastic establishments and Rule, as well as his interactions with royalty and the bishop of Rome. This session seeks to further explore the long-term influence of Columbanus in multiple venues. Papers will examine the influence of the Columbanian Rule on ascetic practice, the relationship between monastery and royalty, sources of spiritual authority, the practice of peregrinatio, etc.

Are there times when heroic acts might, from another perspective, be seen as monstrous? How are Crusader tales narrated in Muslim sources, expulsion tales in Jewish sources, battles from the losing side, slaying tales told by dragons? If we listen for the subaltern to speak, what will we hear? Can we hear the legitimate laments of Grendel's mother, or understand the actions of Lanval's fairy lover? How didretinues of “Saracen” princes perceive the oft-valorized scenes of conversion? Should we praise St. Patrick for cursing inlets and killing the local “wizards” upon his arrival in Ireland? Other saints are valorized for acts of mortification, self-mutilation, and willful starvation. What do we learn if we shift our perspectives, if we re-view these images and narratives from other angles? We invite panelists for a roundtable on “Monstrous Acts of Heroism,” and welcome analysis of surviving texts and image, as well as creative and speculative retellings of medieval tales.

2) At long last my book, Aelfric's Letter to Sigeweard, is in the publisher's hands, Witan Press. Hopefully that will appear this fall.

3) The other thing is that I am looking to move to another position if I can land one. I should be able to, but it would be grand to teach 3/3 or even, dare I hope, 2/2 and have some time to think, research, think, and write.